OT: Does football really provide an opportunity to obtain a quality education?

[pa108]

Do you know what the graduation rate is for Kentucky's men's BB program? Somewhere between 80-90%.

Given all the early departures at UK, I think that percentage is highly unlikely. I think that is the misleading NCAA stat where they dont include those who leave early (which is probably a majority of UK team).

 

[Art]

Given all the early departures at UK, I think that percentage is highly unlikely. I think that is the misleading NCAA stat where they dont include those who leave early (which is probably a majority of UK team).

You win the Kewpie doll.

 

[AWS1022]

Do you know what the graduation rate is for Kentucky's men's BB program? Somewhere between 80-90%.

The question I was responding to was about Huggins. His grad rate at Cincy was nonexistent. That’s why people think he doesn’t care about education.

 

[Nitt1300]

I work with a young guy who recently graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering and played football for a low level D1 team. I think it really depends on the school and how serious they are about football. This should be a consideration when deciding on which school to go. If you go to Alabama, you are not going to have much time for studies.

The school matters, no doubt.

At one end of the spectrum are the service academies and schools like Stanford and NW. At the other end are the SEC programs. I'd like to think that PSU is closer to the higher end than the lower. I know we were once.

 

[PSU_Nut]

I think the point to be made clear is that no football coach of a major D-1 program would even want a team full of engineers. These guys, even at Penn State, are here to play football. Yeah, they have to go to class, and yeah, they have to get good grades. But the staff would rather have a couple of guys like Reid and Urschel that they can hold up and use for PR purposes far more than they'd want an entire team of them. Without explicitly stating it, they don't want a teamful of guys where academics truly has to come first.

There was a coach here once who didn't use regular weightlifting protocols. He used the HIT method, because it was less time-consuming and would allow kids more time to attend to academic pursuits. HIT sessions were 45 minutes a day, instead of 75+ minutes of regular barbell training sessions. For this, he was widely derided as being behind the times and laughed at. You see, even fans of the Grand Experiment didn't want HIT used, at the expense of time for scholarly pursuits.

Luckily, we will soon be moving into an era where the truly elite player won't be going to classes like they do now. Academics really doesn't matter, and pretty soon, it won't matter at all. The farce can end.

HIT had nothing to do with letting kids go to class. If you believe that I got a bridge to sell you. The reason they used HIT is because they felt they could minimize injury and that it didn’t matter how you tore the muscle fibers you would still gain strength.

 

[PSU_Nut]

It happens at all levels of college athletics. I was a pharmacy major and was told by an academic advisor that pharmacy majors can not play sports. There are guys who take challenging majors at every school and others who take the easy route. The opportunity is there is just a matter of guys taking advantage of it. A major division one athlete has a support system that most students can only dream of. It their choice if they take advantage of it or decide that that they will coast through.

 

[Lyons212]

HIT had nothing to do with letting kids go to class. If you believe that I got a bridge to sell you. The reason they used HIT is because they felt they could minimize injury and that it didn’t matter how you tore the muscle fibers you would still gain strength.

Thank you. JoePa did his players no favors with HIT. It is an ineffective training philosophy for developing strength, speed and power. All it did was waist 45 minutes of his player's time. Somebody will probably start arguing that the players were sore and tired and would sometimes vomit...do 10,000 jumping jack at one time and the same thing will probably happen. Any fool can get you tired, ask DJ Durkin.

 

[Lyons212]

This is an interesting topic.
Couple of points.
1). I see top majors for psu include finance and business. These are good degrees.
2). I think one of the reasons Toutant chose Osu was they said he could take their "regular" ME program whereas psu wanted him to take a watered down program because the regular program had a significant time commitment.
3). A few years back, Osu QB was a molecular biology/ pre med major who worked summers in my friends lab. So it can be done.
4). Overall, I think all top D1 schools discourage majors with specific time commitments. Mostly STEM majors that have labs, which sometimes have crazy hours and time commitment. Other challenging majors--such as Math and business, which don't have required lab time, are more practical. So I think the concept of student athlete is still alive and well.
I know more than a few psu players who weren't NFL caliber have ended up with successful careers on Wall Street.

On #2 you are incorrect. The issue was not that PSU wanted Toutant to take a watered down version of ME. The issue was that Toutant wanted to focus on the automotive industry and that OSU's ME program has partnerships with Toyota and Ford and PSU does not. OSU's ME program is superior to PSU's program if your interest is automobiles.

Good decision by Toutant, when selecting a college the number one priority is academics, does it have what you need to accomplish your goals.

 

[interrobang]

Or, it was simply a nice excuse by Toutant to flip. I mean it's not like he woke up one day and said "gee, I want to focus on the auto industry"

 

[toutanth]

Or, it was simply a nice excuse by Toutant to flip. I mean it's not like he woke up one day and said "gee, I want to focus on the auto industry"

pretty sure I'm going to get backlash for this. Actually he's wanted to work in the automotive industry since he was very young, specifically designing engines for performance vehicles

 

[manatree]

pretty sure I'm going to get backlash for this. Actually he's wanted to work in the automotive industry since he was very young, specifically designing engines for performance vehicles

Of course you will. If a player flips to PSU, it's because they finally woke up and smelled the coffee. If a player flips away from PSU, they stole the coffee.